Series: If I Stay

Contains spoilers if you haven’t read If I Stay! Review: If you haven’t read If I Stay [review here], you should probably read that before reading this review! Overall, I liked this one better than If I Stay. I think. To me, they were just so different. The first book is from Mia’s perspective, where you learn about her family, friends, and boyfriend as she decides if she should live or die. Once you get to know her parents and brother, you understand why this is a difficult decision for her, now that they have passed away. She can take the easy route and join them wherever they ended up, or she can struggle through the rest of her life without her family but with her boyfriend and bright musical future ahead of her. She ends up deciding to stay. At the end of the book, I was itching to know a little bit more about what happens next. I didn’t feel like there was closure. I think that If I Stay could have been a standalone, but I’m glad it wasn’t. I loved Adam from the first book and when I learned that Where She Went was from his perspective, I was very excited…. until I read the plot summary. She left him?? How could she do that!? I was initially pissed but then realized how hard it must have been for both of them. I was glad the two would have a chance to meet up again and hopefully start their […]

Review: My expectations were too high with this novel. Everyone constantly raves about it and I’ve seen countless 5 star reviews. I’m not sure why, but it just didn’t hit that level for me. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked this book. I can see why it’s so popular and I’m really glad I read it, but I was expecting to be blown away. This tweet kind of sums up my reaction: I gave 'If I Stay' 3 stars immediately, got off the couch, thought about it and let it really sink in, then bumped it up to 4 stars lol — Lauren (@bookmarklit) August 8, 2014 When I finished the book, I was really surprised. I was like “that was it?” — but that was mostly because there were a million fuckin pages at the end of the book for discussion questions and author questions and other shit. I was totally caught off guard; I thought I had a good 30 pages left to read. In other words, I wasn’t mentally prepared for the book to end. It sounds stupid, but it completely threw me off and made me think “wow I don’t know if I liked this book that much.” After getting off the couch for a few minutes and coming back, I started to let the book sink in (like an ending normally would have). I’m pleased with the way it ended, after a lot of thought. This is definitely the kind of book that resonates with […]

Hey There!

I'm Lauren, a 27 year old girl who can almost always be found reading a book, screaming at the Carolina Panthers, and eating too much pizza. Laziness, Lego, and watching wrestling take up a lot of my time too. Avid drinker of coffee or slurpees. Loves Friends more than you do. Book reviews, recs, and discussions, plus quite a bit about me beyond the books. More? ♥